Antique & Vintage Postcards

Deep in the wooded gorge of Holford Glen on the Somerset Quantock Hills, a rustic lattice-railed footbridge spans a tumbling stream, ferns and mossy boulders crowding the banks below — a quintessentially Edwardian rambler's paradise that drew literary visitors including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who lived nearby at Nether Stowey. This black-and-white Frith photograph captures the dappled, almost fairy-tale quality of the glen, its dense canopy filtering the light into silvery tones. The reverse carries Frith's earlier undivided-style layout specifying inland postage (½d) and foreign postage (1d) separately, alongside the note "For Inland Postage only this space may be used for Communication" — a format used before the January 1902 divided-back rule fully standardised, though the separate foreign rate box places it in the transitional 1902–1904 window. The card is unused and shows some light surface wear with a crease to the right edge.